Abstract: A method is provided for assigning a group of agents to a plurality of available schedules, including determining preferences for a plurality of factors for each agent. Each agent provides an order of importance for the plurality of factors. For each factor, a difference value for that factor between a preliminarily assigned schedule (or pool of unassigned schedules) and each agent's preference for that factor is determined. The difference value for each factor is assigned to a vector for each agent. Then, for each agent, a vector for each schedule not assigned to that agent is determined. Vectors for every other agent are also calculated for every schedule swap involving the current agent. The schedule having the lowest vector is then assigned for each agent.

Abstract: A method of forecasting, allocating and scheduling in a single or multi-site skills-based contact or call center environment organized into a hierarchy of zero or more business units at a first, upper level, one or more contact types at a second, intermediate level, and one or more management units at a third, lower level. A user creates (a) a set of given contact allocations that define how contacts are distributed from a given business unit to multiple contact types, and (b) a set of given requirement allocations that define how agent requirements are distributed from a contact type to one or more management units. Agent availability by contact type is then predicted to generate agent availability data. Thereafter, forecasted contacts and forecasted agent requirements are allocated based on the given contact and requirement allocations as well as the agent availability data.

Abstract: A method for scheduling personnel (e.g., agents) in a work environment based on personnel "skill" levels. The method facilitates true skills-based scheduling of agents in a telephone call center using a simulation tool to predict what fraction of scheduled agents from each "skill group" will be available to each "call type" during each time interval being scheduled. A feedback mechanism is used to adjust net staffing and skills usage data between iterations of a call handling simulation until a given schedule being tested through the simulator meets some acceptance criteria.